


Familiar Faces

by Merfilly



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Friendship, Future Fic, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-19
Updated: 2010-07-19
Packaged: 2017-10-10 16:36:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/101842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pierce doesn't like to fail, even if he can't help it</p>
            </blockquote>





	Familiar Faces

His head hurt. Hearing was...muffled, but ringing. Noises came from beyond the muffled feeling, from outside the ache in his skull. They were familiar noises, ones he had known for a long while, but he should remember why he had fallen asleep in a patient's room. Why did his head hurt so badly? He made his eyes open, to see which of his patients he was infringing on. That was when his prone position, the pressure of an oxygen mask, and the stiffness of an arm with an I.V. in it truly registered.

Benjamin Franklin Pierce was the patient, and he couldn't quite remember why.

`~`~`~`~`

Maybe it was his disagreeable nature during the initial period. Perhaps it was that he had called Trapper at two in the morning with a demand to find him a new place to work because the quacks in Crabapple Cove had gone off their rockers about his license.  Either way, when Pierce woke on the third morning after his 'incarceration' as a patient, there was a familiar set of curves in the chair beside his bed.

"I must have died and gone to the V.A.," was his greeting for his one-time colleague. "Or did you wake up and realize there was life outside of the fatigues?"

The woman, who was still by far a handsome one with the figure that matched, grimaced at him.  "Even with your skull cracked, still with the one-liners?"

"Actually, that was two, Hot Lips," he retaliated. "And I'm fine. They've locked me up in here for no reason whatsoever."

Margaret Houlihan sighed softly, pursing her lips. She had the look of a woman with a mission, and in Pierce's life, that had never boded well for him. There was a reason, after all, that he was a confirmed old bachelor (never mind youthful indiscretions with a nurse before the war) nowadays.  "Hawkeye, you are not a prisoner. You are a patient. You suffered a very severe head injury, worse than the one in Korea, and I am here to make sure you get better."

"Going to give me a kiss like our goodbye to do it?" At her firm resolve and shift in stance, Pierce shrugged. "Then I'm not interested; so long, see you, at least I'll get to see you walk on by."

`~`~`~`~`

That glib dismissal, in the old days, might have pushed the famous Houlihan temper. Now, seeing her old friend with scattered wits, and a refusal to acknowledge his injury, made her agree with Sidney. She had been surprised that once McIntyre called Sidney, that the therapist had turned around and called her.

_"He's never handled personal failure well. You saw that often enough. You can help him through this."_

_"Why me? I've seen him very rarely, all things considered,"_ she had argued.

_"You are known and trusted, but it is that very distance that will give you the edge with him. Help him find himself again, Margaret. It may even turn in your favor, eventually."_

Sidney had refused to remark on that any further, but Margaret had come, having just been at Fort Dix anyway.  Seeing Pierce like this, querulous and fighting to deny all of reality hit deep inside the part of her that had truly admired him during the War. With that to fuel her calm, she moved out of the chair, catching his chin between her thumb and fingers so that he had no choice but to look her right in the eyes.

"Listen here, Benjamin Pierce. I am, as of this morning at an obscene hour of the clock even by my lights, your head nurse, and you **will** listen to me, so that you can stop _hiding_ behind this ridiculousness and ignoring your patients' needs!"

"I want to take care of my patients' needs!" he snapped right back at her.

She picked up his hand, forcing it in front of his eyes with a whirlwind of motion, and watched him see how badly it tremored there between them. "They want you to, Hawkeye. But even you know what this means," she said softly. "So," she continued briskly. "You shape up, follow my orders as if I were Colonel Potter, and we'll retrain your coordination, strengthen you, and beat this damned injury. You hear me?"

He looked back up at her, and nodded, but his nature could not be dominated, so there had to be words. "Just remember, I'm not meant to be in your shape...unless you want me to be," he said.

She knew she shouldn't smile, but that sounded almost sensible, and she nodded. "I don't think you'd wear a skirt much better than Klinger did," she replied as a safe come-back.

`~`~`~`~`

McIntyre would have felt trapped by seeing Hawkeye hurt so much, and tried to joke his way along. Hunnicutt was just too far away. And Sidney would have been there if he had thought he was what Pierce needed; their friendship was too deeply cut to be anything but complicated, Margaret had learned through the years, listening to old comrades and corresponding with both men.

No, as the difficult period of relearning coordination began, Margaret realized that fate had placed the right person in Pierce's life for this. She had compassion, but she could be ruthless. He respected her chops as a healer, but she was, as he knew deep within, his friend as well. She absorbed all of this, taking it in during his recovery, and setting it away for later thoughts.

She thought, when the day came to take Pierce from the hospital to his home, that Hawkeye might even think the same.


End file.
